1. Field of the Invention:
The present invention relates to a receiving device for receiving data, and specifically to a receiving device for filtering received data, and extracting a portion or the entirety of the received data for accumulation in a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art:
Along with the spread of networks such as the internet and with the study and development of the digital broadcasting, the research and development of receiving devices, by which a user receives data such as texts, images, sounds, etc., through networks or radio waves and manages the received data, has been progressing. In a receiving device of such a type, data is automatically received and stored in a storage medium, and the stored data is processed and utilized by a user at any time. Receiving devices of such a type automatically receive data and store the received data in a storage medium, and the stored data is processed and utilized by a user at any time. In such a receiving device, when the received data is stored in the storage medium, the entirety of the data is stored with no consideration for the volume of the received data and the free space of the storage medium. Thus, such a receiving device requires a user to make efforts to edit contents stored in the storage medium, to make a reservation for receiving data, etc., in order to surely store the data she/he prefers. Furthermore, when the user missed editing the contents in the storage medium, or when the user forgot or failed to make a reservation, received data important for the user could not be stored.
Japanese Laid-Open Publication No. 8-339385 discloses a device for storing data with consideration for the capacity of the free space of a storage medium, although the subject matter disclosed in this document falls in a different technology from that of the present invention. Specifically, the device disclosed in this publication is an information retrieval device, in which data retrieved from a database is thinned by filtering according to the capacity of a free space of a user""s storage medium and the use state of data previously stored in the storage medium, and the thinned data is stored in the storage medium. In the filtering process, the capacity of a free space of the storage medium and the total amount of deleted data, e.g., the amount of data which has been utilized and deleted by a user within a specific period of time, are classified into a plurality of levels, and the capacity allocated to a single data item to be stored is determined according to levels of the capacity of a free space and the total amount of deleted data. Specifically, when the capacity of a free space or the total capacity of deleted data is 0-100 Kbyte, 100 byte of data is stored for one article; when the capacity of a free space or the total capacity of deleted data is 100 Kbyte to 1 Mbyte, 500 byte of data is stored for one article; when the capacity of a free space or the total capacity of deleted data is 1-5 Mbyte, 1 Mbyte of data is stored for one article; and when the capacity of a free space or the total capacity of deleted data is 5 Mbyte of more, the filtering is not conducted.
However, the information retrieval device disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Publication No. 8-339385 is intended to deal with text data which is obtained as a search result, such as document information, news articles, etc., and thins the data for storage in accordance with the capacity of the free space of the storage medium at the risk of losing necessary information. On the other hand, in the digital broadcasting application, a certain information content is represented by text data, sound data, video data, etc., and the information content is transmitted by means of the combination of these different data types. Thus, the technique disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Publication No. 8-339385 is not applicable to a network and a digital transmission/reception system which deal with sound data, video data, etc., in addition to text data.
Furthermore, according to the technique disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Publication No. 8-339385, retrieved data to be stored by the information retrieval device in the storage medium is data retrieved by the user herself/himself. Accordingly, it is recognized that the data retrieved by the information retrieval device is data a user wants to acquire to some extent. Thus, the efficient use of the storage medium can be expected by this technique.
On the other hand, in a receiving device in which digitally broadcast data such as text data, video data, sound data, etc., are received through a network or a radio wave, data is transmitted regardless of user""s demands.
Therefore, in the case of applying the technique disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Publication No. 8-339385 to a receiving device which receives digitally broadcast data through a network or a radio wave, data is reduced to conform with an evenly allocated data capacity in accordance with the capacity of a free space regardless of the content (importance) of the data. Accordingly, data which is not important for the user may occupy a large part of the capacity of the storage medium. Furthermore, as a result of this, data which is important for the user cannot be stored in sufficient amounts. Still further, the amount of data to be stored is determined according to the amount of data which has been deleted by the user in a certain period of time. Thus, in the case where the data deleted by the user in the certain period of time is small, even data important for the user cannot be stored in sufficient amounts.
According to one aspect of the present invention, the receiving device includes: a receiving section for receiving first data including a plurality of data items; an accumulative storage section in which at least one of the plurality of data items is stored; a free space capacity acquiring section for acquiring a free space capacity of the accumulative storage section; an accumulation level determining section for determining a data item to be stored in the accumulative storage section; a data extraction section for extracting a data item from the first data based on the determination by the accumulation level determining section; and a data writing section for writing the data item extracted by the data extraction section in the accumulative storage section, wherein the accumulation level determining section includes a storage data determining section for determining the data item to be extracted from the first data based on predetermined parameters, and the parameters include at least the free space capacity.
In one embodiment of the present invention, the first data includes a data attribute, and the parameters further include the data attribute.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the receiving device further includes: a user information storage section for storing information associated with a user as user information; and a user information acquiring section for acquiring the user information from the user information storage section, wherein the parameters include the user information.
In still another embodiment of the present invention, the user information includes a preference concentration ratio flag representing whether or not a user""s preference is concentrated in a specific field.
According to another aspect of the present invention, the receiving device includes: a receiving section for receiving first data including a plurality of data items: an accumulative storage section in which at least one of the a plurality of data items is stored; a date management section for managing a date; an accumulation level determining section for determining a data item to be stored in the accumulative storage section; a data extraction section for extracting the data item from the first data based on the determination by the accumulation level determining section; and a data writing section for writing the data item extracted by the data extraction section in the accumulative storage section, wherein the accumulation level determining section includes an accumulation data determining section for determining the data item to be extracted from the first data based on predetermined parameters, the plurality of data items each include a data attribute, and the parameters include at least the data attribute and the date.
In one embodiment of the present invention, the receiving device further includes a free space capacity acquiring section for obtaining a free space of the accumulative storage section, wherein the parameters further include at least the free space capacity.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the receiving device further includes: a user information storage section for storing information associated with a user as user information; and a user information acquiring section for acquiring the user information from the user information storage section, wherein the parameters further include the user information.
In still another embodiment of the present invention, the user information includes a preference concentration ratio flag representing whether or not a user""s preference is concentrated in a specific field.
Thus, the invention described herein makes possible the advantage of providing a receiving device capable of accumulatively storing data with a high degree of the user""s satisfaction by extracting and storing a portion or the entirety of data, which has been received by the receiving device, with consideration for the user""s preference and/or the capacity of the free space of the storage medium.
This and other advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the following detailed description with reference to the accompanying figures.